Mar 29, 2010

I've been playing around with this idea for a while (you can tell from the Christmas tree in the background of a few of the photos). It's quite fun and a good way to cover up stains that can't be removed from well, nearly all the tshirts my kids have.

Ages ago I started collecting interesting coloured plastic bags from friends, thinking that I would make some reusable shopping bags by ironing them together to make a kind of Tyvek material. This has been done a lot in the last few years, and there are a lot of tutorials out there on the internet showing how to fuse plastic shopping bags into a more durable kind of material that can be sewn like fabric. Here's a good one, in case you've not seen or heard of it before. Here are a few lovely examples of fused bags too.

Before I got around to collecting enough to make a fused bag project. I started wondering if I could use the same iron and parchment paper method to iron some of the cute plastic decals to the kid's clothing. Among the bags that my friends saved for me were some cute disney store ones, some party favour bags, some Lego store ones and a whole load of brightly coloured ones and ones with patterns like those from Old Navy.

I decided to start off by trying to iron a disney princess onto an old vest. Just cut out the image from the bag, then places it where I wanted it on the shirt and put some parchment paper over the top before ironing it on.

I had the iron set to cotton setting and found that providing the decal I cut out was smaller than the footprint of the iron, then I could get the bag to fuse really well to the tshirt material by pressing down hard and holding it for about ten seconds. If I wasn't quick enough putting the iron down hard then the bag would shrivel and distort the decal, which is why I stuck to doing ones that were smaller than the iron base. Let it cool a bit before you pull off the parchment paper, so that the plastic is set.

You're basically melting the bag into the surface of the fabric enough that once it has cooled, it won't peel back off. Once you've done the initial quick hard press of the iron and the plastic is adhered to the fabric, then you can go over it again to make sure it it well fused. If there are corners not fused, or it's not melted into the fabric enough then there's a chance that it'll peel off in the wash. That happened with the large decal of cinderella that I tried. It was just a bit too big, and I didn't get it totally fused to the tshirt enough. Still, I'm experimenting with this so that you don't have to right?

Because the plastic bags are so thin, when they bond to the fabric they leave the material still nice and soft feeling, not like the iron on transfers you can buy to print onto, which really seem to bulk up the fabric.

The other interesting thing with this is that you can deliberately iron the decals a little less, so that they *can* be peeled off. The cinderella one stayed well adhered whilst being worn all day, but when it came to machine washing, it just peeled right off and didn't make a mess of the shirt at all. Could be a cool way to change up plain tshirts for special events, so you can peel it all off after and use the tshirt again. All the ones I've done since then have been well ironed on perminent decals though.

Party favour bag butterfly decal on a pair of home made long tshirt shorts worked really well.

Some bags did work better than others, but most bags worked fine with varying amounts of ironing. The only thing that didn't work, which was a shame, was some easter eggs that I cut out of a really thin plastic dollar store table cloth. I'd rescued the table cloth from the bin at a local party thinking it would be great to cut out and iron on the eggs and bunnies to make easter skirts for the girls, but the plastic was just too thin and fragmented when I ironed it.

I ended up cutting out a load of egg shapes from the other bags that I had to make the first easter skirt. Added a load of hand cut flowers too.

I had two large tshirts to make the skirts from, by just threading elastic through the bottom hem. One from Goodwill and one from the Dollar Tree. My kids have a few skirts like these of various lengths, because they are so easy, cheap and fast to make.

Some of the yellow flowers I wasn't quick enough to press down on, so they shrivelled a bit, actually it was more because my ironing board is really lame, so I had to pad the surface to get even contact with the iron, but once I realised that, they worked much better.

Here's a flower laid out before ironing.

Here's one that shrivelled.

And here's one after I sorted out padding the crummy ironing board to get even pressure.

Once I'd done the pink skirt for my older daughter, I thought I'd try putting my own decal together on the blue skirts by cutting shapes out of the coloured bags. I cut out separate shapes for the head, ears, body, feet and tail of the bunny from a white Safeway's bag, and ironed them on one at a time. Then cut out the pink for the ears and face and ironed them on top. Then cut out the yellow basket and ironed that on. I drew over the decal with a perminent marker and ironed that to set it into the plastic.

Finally I thought I'd see if I could punch out shapes from the plastic bags with scrapbook shape punches. I have a couple of really small ones that are flowers. I found that if you sandwich the bag between two layers of parchment paper (I guess any paper would do, I just had the parchment paper right there because I was using it already) then you can cut out a really clean shape from the bag to iron on. I ironed on two teeny little flowers to the basket and then cut some green bits of grass to iron on too.

I'm going to ask a mate of mine that is into scrapbooking if I can borrow a few of her shape cutters to get some more shapes cut from the bags I have, as this is much easier and quicker than hand cutting with scissors! If you have some of these punches already then this project will be really really quick and easy for you to try out.

Sorry if you noticed the chaos of accidental posting earlier today. It's been a bit on the looney side here the last two weeks. I've had some unexpected surgery and things are only just getting back to normal. I'm clearly still a couple of cans short of a six pack though, and managed to post this before I added any of the images. Whoops!

As you can see, it is spring break this week, so we are taking it easy and playing twister while the laundry doesn't get folded. NB. don't worry, Twister is a spectator sport for me until I am fully recovered ;)

Thanks for another interesting post! I love the re-use factor of virtually everything you do. And finally, something productive to do with a plastic bag! Hope the surgery went well, and you're feeling like contorting yourself over a Twister mat again sometime soon ;)

Why am I spending money on those iron-on printer transfer sheets that cost a bomb? This is brilliant! Now to find Maisy plastic bags so can make Maisy underwear. Brilliant (as said earlier! Thank you, KM!

This is the height of awesomeness! Your artistic ability is pretty awesome, too, but I was thinking people like me, with little artistic ability, could use coloring pages as templates for pieced designs, like your too cute bunny!

I just found you from dollar store crafts. Too bad I didn't see this last week, I was looking for a Strawberry shortcake shirt for my daughter to wear at her birthday party! Now though I know and I can use an extra goodie bag to boot! Very cool.

This is such an ingenious idea! I happened upon your site because of this tutorial featured on Dollar Store Crafts, and I am LOVING your blog. Your t-shirt skirts are adorable! This is on my to do list now. =)

Ooh Good point Polly! I think only the Belle one has been in the tumbler so far. That seems to be fine so far and it was the first one that I did, so it's lasted a bit over three months to date. When I do tumble dry anything it's usually on the cooler setting though. Not sure if they would deal with a super hot setting in a tumbler or not.

I looked through all the comments looking for information on how they hold up in the drier and am disappointed that there has not been much testing in this area. I will have to try this out on some test fabric.... Anyone else try it in the drier on hot?

Wow, wonderful! I so appreciate the tips and tricks on what worked and what didn't - because I will surely find the ways that don't work otherwise. :>) I linked to this on my weekly roundup last week and am just now (yikes!) getting around to comment. Thanks so much for sharing!

I love this idea! I just found out about it and am excited to try it soon. I emailed you to ask permission to link your tutorial on my blog,maybe you didn't get it. I really would love to share this with my readers. Thanks!

I had to scroll down for 2 days to leave a comment!LOL(exxag.) I have ruint t-shirt after t-shirt with this ignorant iron I have!! It worked great for some really neat pants that I (well,Ray ripped a hole in...throwing me down the driveway...another story) Anyways,I loooved these pants and he just ruined the suckers...then I happened upon these blil dacal(i guess u call em)...but they are iron on patches...some have flowers,some have peace signs...etc....and I was in hog heaven w/ not only creative ideas....but fixxer-uppers for my ripped favorite jeans..Gosh,your posts sure do inspire me.I just wanna shut down the computer & go get this stuff that U have that make these awesome do-dads'...lol Makes me wanna flaunt me creative stuff.....the fused bags sound like a start for me!!! How cool!!

hi, i found your blog thru the crafty crow and love all your ideas! i was hoping you could give me some pointers on the iron on decals though. i have tried it and tried it but all i seem to be doing is fusing the bag image to the parchment paper. i cant get it to stick to the shirt. did you run into this problem? do you have any pointers that could help me out? ive been trying to use a bag from the disney store and a cotton t from joann fabrics. thanks!

You are amazing! You should get some sort of recycling award, as well as an award for frugal creativity! Those skirts and shirts are adorable, and not expensive, but I bet you could sell them for quite a bit at a craft show! Lucky children in your home!

i have no arts and crafts experience, but to solve your problem about only using decals from the plastic that fits your iron, why don't you heat up a large sauce pan on the stove to melt the plastic on larger decals.

These are really good and are an awesome idea!! Be careful though, Disney is known for suing anyone for infringement, they've even sued preschools for painting Disney characters on their wall without proper licensing.

this is the coolest thing I have seen on any blogs this week,, I've seen where people made bags fusing the plastic together but I didnt know you could iron it to fabric like that.. so neat. Thanks for sharing,, I must try this!!

The Discovery Museums in Acton MA (USA)have a harmonograph table which is awesome. They also have a handout which tells how to build a small one at home using materials you could get at a home improvement store for not much money. I don't think the instructions are on their website but if you contact them maybe they would fax it to you. Their website is:http://discoverymuseums.org/hands-exhibits/harmonograph-table-0

Thanks so much for this tutorial!! I use this to make a super hero themed pencil case as a gift. I couldn't find any super hero fabric, but your tutorial saved me and I used batman party goodie bags ironed on to my fabric. so much fun!!

My God! I am a 26-year-old from Romania, and now, that i've discovered your post i can make (finally) the bags and t-shirst that i always dreamed about doing, with smart messages on them. Thank you very much for sharing!!!!

It's all down the type of paper you use. It's the stuff that you bake with. It's called "parchment paper" in the US and "greaseproof paper" in the UK. Not wax paper though! I don't know what it's called in other parts of the world though. Does that help?

Used this idea of ironing plastic as inspiration for a bit of off-the-wall craziness and referenced you. If you'd like to check it out sometime, the specific blog post is at http://livinginlilliput.blogspot.com/2011/01/pixie-party.html only I made fairy wings. My toadstools on the same post were also inspired by yours - you are simply fabulous!!

These is really really great idea. I can never imagine that those plastic shopping bags can be turned to cute iron-on prints. I am a lover of iron-patches because they gave a personalized look on anything and usually am ordering them online at www.irononpatches.net. Your post is a great alternative.

Hi, I just tried this today after reading abut it ages ago - was waiting for some nice bags to come along! I also had the problem of it all sticking to the paper (I'm in the UK and using greaseproof paper which I'm not sure is the same as parchment?). Anyhoo... I experimented a bit and tried with some kitchen foil shiny side down with the paper on top (seems you can't move the iron on foil!) and it sort of worked. As long as you let it really cool off for a while after you stop ironing it sticks to the fabric - you also get a really smooth shiny finish which is strange!Also just to say I love your blog, such a lot of great ideas! Thanks

Love this! I wanted some red white and blue to wear for a Memorial day parade but had nothing except my blue shorts and a new white shirt. I remembered this post and hauled out a red Target bag and used a Sharpie to draw a big (simple) flower and also cut out some white circles for the flower center and slapped it onto the top. I also cut out a cute ladybug from the red and used the reverse side of the bag (gray) to make the wing shape and slapped that onto the hip. Very boutique cute for zero additional cost. Love!

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